27603: Haiti-Progres (News) This Week In Haiti 23:48 2/8/2006 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haïti Progrès <editor@haiti-progres.com>

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
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                   HAITI PROGRES
        "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

               * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                February 8 - 14, 2006
                  Vol. 23, No. 48



FEBRUARY 7 ELECTIONS:
A COMPLETE FIASCO


Pandemonium reigned at most of the 800 voting centers throughout Haiti
on February 7, in a vote that was marred by poor planning,
disorganization, panic and fraud.

Tens of thousands of Haitians waited on long lines from before dawn for
polls to open at 6 a.m.. Most, polls show, were anxious to vote for
presidential candidate René Garcia Préval, 63, President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide's first prime minister in 1991 and then president from
1996-2001. Most Haitians, particularly the poor majority, see him as the
candidate most likely to roll back the February 2004 coup d'état and
occupation, which have left Haiti poorer and more crime-ridden than
ever.

"Most of those I interviewed at the polls today saw a vote for Préval as
a vote for the return of Aristide," said Kevin Pina, a Haiti-based North
American filmmaker and founder of the Haiti Information Project.
Aristide is now exiled in Pretoria, South Africa.

But many voting centers opened three to seven hours late, and some never
opened at all or received voting materials. Many Haitians from poor
rural and urban districts say they were unable to ever cast their
ballot. Either they were not listed on the voter rolls or were unable to
get to a voting booth.

Even Patrick FéquiPre, a member of the Provisional Electoral Council
(CEP) organizing the vote called the election "a mess," according to
Reuters, and Johan Van Hecke, head of a European Union observer mission,
said that voter lists were full of mistakes.

Compounding the problem, just three days before the vote, the CEP
announced changes in the voting location for thousands of voters. Many
never heard about the change. For example, about 60,000 voters from the
sprawling slum of Cité Soleil learned that they could not vote at a the
SONAPI headquarters in the nearby Industrial Park. Instead they had to
walk a mile further to an old building on the former military airport's
runway in Pont-Rouge or to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Unable to find their voting center, thousands of Haitians took to the
streets in spontaneous demonstrations to denounce what they saw as an
attempt to disenfranchise them. "They denounced the CEP and what they
considered an effort on its part to fix the elections in favor of [right
wing assembly industrialist and presidential candidate] Charles Henry
Baker," Pina told HaVti ProgrPs. "Chanting 'Aristide must return' and
"Our vote must be counted" as well as slogans for Préval, they marched
to the CEP headquarters in protest. The CEP later announced that polling
stations would remain open past the 4 p.m. deadline. While many returned
to cast their ballots, countless others gave up in frustration and
declared the elections a fraud."

Many reports of vote tampering are also streaming in. On the Central
Plateau, election officials reportedly caught agents of KONBA, Baker's
party, stuffing ballot boxes. The head of another voting center had to
call police to remove an armed agent of the RNDP, former president
Leslie Manigat's party, who was caught ballot box stuffing.

There were other forms of fraud. "At Village 2004, where Cité Soleil
resident are supposed to vote, one of my cameramen filmed several dozen
people who gave a four-four signal with their fingers," Pina explained.
"That meant, of course, the number 44, which is the number associated
with the party of Baker. They were apparently taken to the head of the
line, and many people took note. After that, almost all the Lavalas folk
started using the same gesture, which shut the subterfuge down."

Sweat-shop magnate Andy Apaid, the leader of the pro-coup
Washington-backed "Group of 184" civil society front with Baker, acted
as an election "observer" with the National Council of Observers (CNO)
at one station.

There are also numerous reports of electoral violence. In the
Northwestern town of Gros Morne, a policeman fatally shot a voter and
was then himself killed by an enraged crowd. A Chilean UN soldier was
stabbed in the arm at another voting center. There were also violent
scuffles between voters and security guards in Port-au-Prince and the
northwestern city of GonaVves, in which several people were hurt. And
the reports have just begun to come in.

Voting went much more smoothly in wealthy neighborhoods like
Pétionville, and poorer Haitians took note. "We need to vote," voter
Emmanuel Noel, told a Washington Post reporter in Bel-Air. "We have a
card, but we can't find a place to vote. They're trying to keep out the
people and give the election to bourgeoisie."

"We know their fraud. They are trying to give us Baker," another voter,
Lucas Charles, told Reuters. "If they give us Baker, we will spend the
next five years firing weapons."

"Most of the problems and delays occurred in the poor communities that
are a base of support for Lavalas," Pina said. "I have covered four
elections in Haiti and this was by far the most disorganized. The only
place where polling stations opened on time, 6 a.m., was in Pétionville.
Everywhere else we went, they were 3 to 4 hours late. The presidential
elections in 2000 cost an estimated $12.5 million and there were over
12,000 polling stations that opened on time. These elections cost $73
million and had only 804 polling stations with tremendous organizational
re-enforcement by the UN and the so-called international community, and
yet voters had to wait for hours before they vote."

Even spokesmen for the United Nations Mission to Stabilize Haiti
(MINUSTAH) began to recognize the election debacle as the day wore on.

"It's going well so far," U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst told the
Associated Press in the morning despite the AP's report that "waits were
long, someone stole a batch of ballots and scuffles broke out."

By the afternoon, Wimhurst could no longer keep the upbeat spin. "It's
like putting on a major performance without a rehearsal," he told
Reuters.

Only the Bush administration tried, as it often does, to deny reality.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Tom
Shannon told Reuters that Haiti's elections were "pretty successful."

"We will work with (whomever) the Haitian people chose as their
president," Shannon said. Many Haitians question whether Washington was
trying to limit the vote for Préval when it refused last week to supply
helicopters to ferry election materials to remote parts of Haiti's
countryside, where Préval's support is expected to be strong.

Shannon also said that Washington would work with the new government "to
address the kind of long-standing development and security issues that
have plagued Haiti for many, many years."

But many Haitians have had quite enough of Washington's "help," which
they see as responsible for bringing the country to its present sorry
state. Through everything from meddling "democracy enhancement" programs
to backing coups and launching military occupations, the U.S. has torn
and trampled the very fabric of Haitian society.

Now Washington and MINUSTAH head Juan Gabriel ValdPs have been preparing
public opinion with talk of a "long term" occupation and even a
"protectorate." The MINUSTAH's current Security Council mandate expires
on February 15.

"The elections are a first crucial step, but it will take a number of
years and a lot of hard work," Hedi Anabi, UN assistant
secretary-general for peacekeeping, announced at the UN on Feb. 6.
Despite the semblance that Haitians were regaining sovereignty, Anabi
assured reporters that U.N. occupation troops - called "peacekeepers" by
him - will remain in Haiti "for the long haul."





TEN THINGS THE MEDIA DON'T TELL YOU
by Charles Arthur

1) The elections on 7 February are not just for a new president. On the
same day, votes will have the chance to select three Senators and a
Deputy to represent them in the Parliament. There are a total of 30
Senate seats (three for each of the ten departments), and 99 seats in
the House of Deputies. Voters will be given three separate ballot
papers.

2) In the elections for Senators for each department, the Senate
candidate with the highest number of votes will serve a six year term of
office, the Senate candidate with the second highest number of votes
will serve a four year term of office, and the Senate candidate with the
third highest number of votes will serve a two year term. When these
terms of office expire, a new Senator will be elected for a six year
term.

3) In the elections for President and Deputy, if one candidate scores
more than 50% of valid votes cast, he or she will be elected to office.
If no candidate scores more than 50%, the two candidates with the
highest percentages of valid votes will contest a second round run-off
on 19 March.

4) In the whole country, there are just over 800 polling centers,
containing a total of 9,000 polling stations. In other words, there are
many polling stations set up in the same locations. The UN peacekeeping
mission apparently insisted on a small number of locations for security
reasons.

5) Rene Préval has never been a member of the Lavalas Family party, the
party founded in late 1996 by Jean-Bertrand Aristide. When Préval was
elected president for the first time in the presidential election held
at the end of 1995, the Lavalas Family party did not exist.

6) The Lespwa platform, for whom Rene Préval is the presidential
candidate, has only put up 19 candidates for the 30 Senate seats. Lespwa
has no Senate candidates standing in West or North-East departments.

7) Serge Simon, the Senate candidate for the social democratic
coalition, Fusion, in the West department, caused a stir last week when
he joined a pro-Préval rally in Cite Soleil. He told the crowd to vote
for Préval for President and for him for the Senate. (The Fusion
presidential candidate, Serge Gilles, was, to put it mildly, not
pleased.)

8) Winter Etienne, who is standing as a Senate candidate for Guy
Philippe's FRN party in the Artibonite department, was a leader of the
Cannibal Army. This GonaVves-based gang was once strongly pro-Aristide
but changed sides in 2003 and took up arms against the Lavalas Family
government. Etienne's Cannibal Army murdered a number of police officers
during the fighting in GonaVves in early 2004. Under the interim
government, Etienne was given the job of director of
the GonaVves port. One report during 2005 stated that Etienne was in
hiding following an attempt to arrest him on corruption and theft
charges relating to activities at the port.

9) Another candidate for the Senate in the Artibonite, standing for his
own party, the LAAA, is interim prime minister Gerard Latortue's nephew,
Youri Latortue. Youri is a former army officer, allegedly involved in
the murder of Father Jean-Marie Vincent in 1994, and more recently head
of security for his uncle during the period of the interim government.

10) The Senate candidate for the North-East department, the location of
the new Free Trade Zone in the town of Ouanaminthe, is Rudolph Boulos,
who is standing for the Fusion party. Rudolph is the brother of Reginald
Boulos, the well-known businessman and media magnate with a strong
involvement in national politics, who is a leading light in the Group of
184 platform. In 1996, Rudolph Boulos' company, Pharval, distributed
medicinal syrups contaminated with diethyl glycol that caused the death
of 62 children.

Charles Arthur is with the London-based Haiti Support Group



GROUPS CHARGE U.S. AND DR WITH CENTRAL ROLES IN HAITIAN COUP
by Kim Ives

On Feb. 2, four organizations filed a petition with the human rights
branch of the Organization of American States (OAS), charging the
governments of the United States and the Dominican Republic with
undermining and overthrowing the democratically elected Haitian
government and "replacing it with a government with no constitutional or
electoral legitimacy."

That de facto Haitian government, which organized this week's first
round of elections in Haiti, is also named in the complaint.

The TransAfrica Forum, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti
(IJDH), the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), and the Allard K.
Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School filed
the suit with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)
saying that Washington and Santo Domingo had violated "the integrity,
sovereignty, and self-determination of the Haitian people" in
contravention of the OAS Charter and other international laws and
treaties.

The 47-page petition lays out how the U.S. government economically
strangled Haiti's constitutional government through an aid embargo,
helped arm guerillas launching attacks from the Dominican Republic, and
then kidnapped the elected president. It also asks for relief on behalf
of five Haitian citizens - unnamed for their security - because "no
adequate remedies are available for Petitioners from local and national
officials in these governments."

The petition comes on the heels of a major investigative report in the
Jan. 29 New York Times which outlines how the Bush administration worked
through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to destabilize and
oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on February 29, 2004 (see HaVti
ProgrPs, Vol. 23, No. 47, 2/1/2006).

"The CARICOM countries and the African Union, together almost a third of
the United Nations membership, immediately denounced the coup, and
called for an investigation at both the Organization of American States
and the UN," said the IJDH's Brian Concannon, Jr., in a telephone press
conference just before filing the petition. "Both bodies refused to
investigate, and instead ratified the coup by accepting the illegal
regime's representatives. The failure of the very organizations
entrusted to promote peace, democracy and sovereignty to respond to such
an obviously illegal overthrow of a democratic government spurred us
file this suit."

Asked what the groups hope at a minimum to get out of the complaint,
Concannon replied: "A declaration that the coup was wrong and that the
rights of the petitioners were violated by the U.S, the Dominican
Republic and the [de facto] Haitian government."

However, he noted that, after making an investigation of the charges,
the IACHR might send the case to the Costa Rica-based Inter-American
Court of Justice, which could make a binding ruling against the accused
coup makers.

The IJDH, along with other groups, has filed other petitions with the
OAS over the past year. Last April, they filed one on behalf of
imprisoned former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, a case which the IACHR
has agreed to take up. Another coalition filed a petition last November
charging the Haitian police and U.N. occupation forces with the killing
of innocent Haitian civilians. Then in January, the IJDH filed a
complaint on behalf of Haitian activist Jimmy Charles, who was killed
last year in police custody after being arrested by U.N. troops.

Concannon stressed that this latest complaint, which took a long time to
compile due to the many crises in Haiti, underscores the "limited
legitimacy" of any government that might come out of Feb. 7 elections.

"It is misleading to think that if everything goes well on Tuesday that
everything is well with Haitian democracy," Concannon said. "In the long
term, the last two years have been a deep step back, and you are not
going to have real steps forward unless the international community and
everybody in Haiti finally accept the rule of law and the votes of
Haitian voters even if they disagree with them."

He also noted that there may be supplementary information provided to
the IACHR as Haiti's coup continues. "We might have to write a whole
other big section after the elections," he said.



FATHER JEAN-JUSTE THROWS LAST MINUTE SUPPORT TO PRÉVAL

On Feb. 6, provisionally released political prisoner Father Gérard
Jean-Juste threw his support behind the front-running Haitian
presidential candidate, René Préval.

Standing in front of the Wyndam Hotel at the Ft. Lauderdale Airport,
Jean-Juste called Préval "a gentle man in whom we have faith, who during
his term from 1996 - 2001 proved he was a good president, a man who
served all people residing in Haiti, Haitians as well as foreigners."

About one month earlier, Jean-Juste had said that elections were not
possible without the return of exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

"We are going to change strategy and have decided to participate,"
Jean-Juste said, wearing a cap and t-shirt emblazoned with Préval's
image.

Jean-Juste was asked if he had consulted the leadership of Aristide's
Lavalas Family party, which still rejects elections without the release
of political prisoners, return of exiles and national negotiations. "I
haven't spoken to President Aristide about it," he said. "This is my
personal opinion and as a citizen, I have a right to vote."

Nonetheless, Father Jean-Juste will not be voting since he will be in
Florida for at least the next six months undergoing treatment for
leukemia under provisional release from Haiti's de facto government (see
HaVti ProgrPs, Vol. 23, No. 47, 2/1/2006).

Saying that he once "flirted" with the idea of becoming a candidate last
year but rejected it, Jean-Juste said that elections are "not going to
be the best but they are a must." He said that his change of position
was largely a response to the many nameless political prisoners he
talked with in jail.

"I exchanged with them a lot on the issue," he said. "Most of them think
that the hope is a return to justice by electing Préval to power."

The Wyndam Hotel would not allow Jean-Juste to hold his press conference
in the room his supporters had booked in the hotel, forcing him to speak
to the press on the highway's median in front of the hotel. A battery of
Broward County deputies massed in front of the hotel.

"The hotel's management must have received a phone call from somebody,"
quipped activist Jack Lieberman, who had booked the room. The hotel
management had no comment on why they had refused to allow the press
conference to be held in the hotel.

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